A Wish For Wings
by Ehann
Summary: Stand alone. Snape wishes for that which can never be


Every day was the same, it seemed like, the man thought. Same children year after year, same coworkers, well nearly anyway. His dark gaze drifted over the newcomer briefly. Oh, she had been at Hogwarts for almost two years at this point, but it didn't matter. To those who had come before, she would always be the new teacher.

Nothing changed, at any rate. For even though she was a recent addition, he still knew too much about her. He stifled a snort. Too much by half, he thought. She was sitting down the row from him, the empty seats stretching between them like an uncrossable chasm. And, he supposed, in a way, that was exactly what it was.

Uncrossable.

It was beyond foolish, he knew, to wish for things that could never be. He looked down at his hands. They were large, and supple, with great strength and dexterity in the fingers, and palm. Perfect for crushing ingredients to the finest consistency. Perfect for ladling potions with nary a drop splashed. His hands were perfect at many things, it seemed, except the one thing he desired above all else.

To possess the ability to stroke tender skin, to bring pleasure with those rough calluses, to drive her to dizzying heights, and make her crash, exhausted and satiated.

No, those were things his hands would never know. He clenched them suddenly, turning the knuckles white against his sallow skin.

Might as well wish for wings, he thought with resignation, rather than bitterness. His life was his life, and no amount of wishing would ever change that.

~~~~~~~~~~

Most of the staff at Hogwarts liked to sit in the same seats at the High table during every meal. Miss Granger did not, he noticed. Sometimes she drew up the chair between Lupin and McGonagall. Other times, she took the seat beside Poppy Pomfrey. That was a favorite place of hers. Three nights out of seven she sat there and discussed medicine and healing spells. Once in a great while, she chose to visit with Hooch, or Sprout. But on those nights, he saw, the conversation was stilted and uncomfortable.

From his place, Severus watched her approached from the entryway. Where was it to be this night? Most of the staff had arrived and been seated already. He leaned back, unobtrusively noting the empty spaces. One between Trelawney and Hooch. Another on one side of Lupin—The Defense against the Dark Arts professor had pulled up the next to last seat at the far end of the table. Oh yes, he realized with some relish. There was an empty chair on his right.

His dismissed the possibility immediately. She had chosen that seat once, long ago, nearly a full year and a half, he guessed. That had been before Voldemort's dispatch. He didn't fully remember the events of that particular night as his body had been suffering with aftereffects of the _Cruciatus. He had later gathered from the other professors that he had not even acknowledged her presence._

More fool, he. 

He stabbed a carrot with more force than necessary, staring holes into his china. He felt the faintest of breezes, and the hairs on the back of his hand stood up. The chair next to him scraped loudly against the floor as she pulled it out. He stared at her, befuddled, as she smiled at him, then slid closer to the table.

"Good evening, Professor Snape," she said cordially enough. 

"Miss Granger," he acknowledged. His voice was steady as rock. His hand shook with the minutest of tremors. Three hundred seconds passed, and he could think of nothing to say. He was not a conversationalist by nature, that was true, but he had always been able to communicate with others. Well, he supposed there was little hope for it. If he wished to say something, it must be regarding what occupied his mind. "I expected you to join Lupin. I had not foreseen that you would choose this end of the table."

She paused, with her fork halfway to her mouth. "My apologies," she said stiffly. "I had not realized you desired solitude."

"I do _not," he said without thinking. Then he turned his eyes to his own place, thanking, for once, the sallow tones that left him free of telltale flushing. He heard her chew, then swallow. Her fork clinked against the china, and he looked up. He was taken aback to find her quite intently staring at his face. "What," he demanded. It came out much harsher than he had intended, but he didn't know what was the matter…_

She blinked. Flushed. "Sorry," she began hesitantly. "I just never realized…"

Snape waited silently.

"Your eyes…are so dark, I couldn't see where the pupils began and the irises ended." Her confession was quiet. Simple.

He wondered if she had taken leave of her senses. What had possessed her to reveal such a thing? Talking about his eyes, indeed! Next she'd be telling him what beautiful hands he had. He wanted to shake his head, more with disgust at himself, than anything about her. For just a moment, he'd allowed himself to hope.

"It's warm tonight, Professor," she said. "Warm enough for a walk about the lake, I imagine."

"Indeed," he commented. He glanced up, examining the Charmed ceiling that mirrored the weather conditions. "Crescent moon," he murmured.

She smiled, then, and for a brief second, Snape would have sworn the very air around her brightened. "It's lovely," she said, never taking her eyes from his.

His food forgotten he could do nothing but stare. The smile lingered on her lips, showing a row of perfect white teeth. But it was the expression on her face that entranced him so. She glowed. Yes, yes, and if he could have at that moment, he would have made a grand sweeping gesture to emphasize his disgust at his thoughts. It was, unfortunately, an accurate description, however. "Yes," he answered finally. "It is."

~~~~~~~~~~

After the meal, he parted ways civilly enough. Said his 'goodnights', and even managed a ghost of a smile. She touched his hand, and he had smelled her perfume. A subtle scent, he thought in the comforts of his chambers. Night blooming jasmine, perhaps. He checked the time absently, and wondered if she was, at this moment, strolling along the lake, perhaps tossing tidbits to the squid. Probably, he thought darkly, she'd dragged Lupin along. He had observed over the course of the last six months of so, that those two seemed to get along quite well, spending an inordinate amount of time together.

Not to say that he was mentally dissecting the company she kept. Ha! Certainly not. For that would be most out of character for a man like himself.

Still. It had seemed to be a lovely evening. Stars shining, crescent moon…well it had better only be a crescent, if she was walking with Lupin. She was a smart enough chit, he decided. Even if she does have execrable taste in male companions.

Snape settled down with a book, or tried to. He found that he kept reading the same three paragraphs over and over, and comprehended exactly none of it. At half past nine, he laid the book facedown—something he _never did—having decided after all, that perhaps a walk by the lake was just the thing to settle his nerves._

A great part of his mind thought that was indeed amusing. _Settle your nerves, will it? You'll end up in St. Maungo's no doubt. He did snort then. He searched for a suitable pretext, just in case Lupin was along for the ride. He felt like a fool, but then he had spent a little over a year, feeling that way. The most feared and hated teacher in the entire school, had a…a—he hated the word— __crush… on a twenty three year old girl? Positively humiliating. Add to that the fact that she was breathtaking and he was…not. A recipe for degradation, in his opinion. Except he couldn't do a damn thing to make it stop._

And oh, how he had tried.

Way back in September of the previous year, he had first realized that Miss Granger was no longer the bossy, talkative, schoolgirl who had once been the bane of his very existence. Breaking into his stores—oh, he was well aware of _that! Throwing up her hand at every opportunity…trying to once and for all make him admit that she was exceptional._

Well, he had thought more than once during the past year, certainly, she had her revenge now. Because he thought she had _easily attained the title of 'Exceptional'. She was brilliant, she was beautiful, she was kind…in short, she was everything he was not._

His very opposite.

Somewhere, he knew, the gods were laughing.

~~~~~~~~~~

By the time he reached the lake, silvery blue clouds were passing over the moon. His boots crunched over the sand, crushing shells and debris. He saw no couples strolling along, a fact for which he was grateful. However, neither did he see Miss Granger. Ah, well. She's been and gone, of course.

She had been correct earlier, though. It was a lovely night. Unseasonably warm for the end of September. Soon enough, the snow would fly through the air, painting pictures with the early morning frost.

Snape was about to turn back when he saw the huddled shape on the shoreline. Her hair streamed down her back, and her arms were wrapped tightly around her bent knees. She sat, motionless, and stared mindlessly, it seemed, out into the night. He was quite near to her when she looked up, and he rather guessed that he had startled her.

"Severus—Professor Snape," she stammered.

His eyebrow rose. "You may call me Severus if you wish," he told her.

"I'm sorry. I just…I don't really thing of you as 'Professor Snape' since I started on here, so…" she trailed off, obviously ill at ease.  He wondered if he hadn't perhaps made an awful mistake in coming out to the lake. He couldn't even remember his pretext for walking out here in the first place.

"You should be careful, Miss Granger. A woman by herself outside the castle…makes quite the tempting target, don't you think?"

He saw her eyes narrow. "I didn't expect to be out here this long," she said in that stiff voice. She waited a few moments and added, "I…I didn't expect you to come." The admission was soft. "It's starting to hurt my neck, you know, looking up at you. Why don't you come down here?" She smiled a little, patting the dry sand next to her.

In for a penny…Snape sat, bending his own long legs at the knees, hoping he didn't look ridiculous. She seemed pleased. "I was thinking that you had company," he mentioned in as light a tone as he could muster. Which, judging by her expression, was not that much.

She appeared confused. "But why would I…?"

Snape looked away. "Why would any woman?" he asked.

"Why would any _woman what?"_

Merlin's blood, must she make him say it? Could she be that cruel? No, after a moment, that was not in her nature. All those years she had assisted Longbottom, knowing it was going to cost her…no. She was not deliberately cruel. While he searched for words to answer her question, she spoke.

"Did you think…Remus and me?"

He forced himself to turn back toward her, to see her face. "It was a valid assumption." He tried to keep his voice as flat as possible. Let her see emotionless. Let her see indifference.

But she only laughed merrily, the sound pealing and echoing through the night air.

"Oh, no," she said, almost conspiratorially, "I could never be with Remus. I simply don't…don't think of him that way. Besides," she added. "He just seems too…lighthearted. I prefer a man…"

Snape dropped his affectation of indifference. "Tell me," he encouraged, dropping hid pitch and really _using all the persuasion his voice possessed._

"Oh," she glanced up at the moon. "The man I need is rather like the crescent moon up there. Sometimes he gets overshadowed in the day, by the sun, but at night…" She smiled knowingly. "At night, he's in his element. Dark. Brilliant. Brooding. A little mysterious, and a little sharp. But he's the type of man that, even if you can't see him, you know he's always there. Waiting." She gestured toward the sky, again. "Like the moon," she said unnecessarily. 

He suddenly found great interest in staring at his hands. He was imagining things. She couldn't possibly mean…gah! He was a foolish old man, wishing on the crescent moon, like a lovesick fool. Might as well to wish for wings, he thought bitterly.

"—beautiful, you know."

"What?" he demanded. He had been so engrossed in his disturbing thoughts, that he'd only caught the end of her comment.

"I said, you have such beautiful hands…like a sculptor's, I suppose." And with that, she slipped of her tiny hands over his, until it nestled palm to palm with his own.  Bemused, he allowed her to intertwine their fingers. His head shot up then, and he was unable to suppress his surprise and delight.

 "Hermione," he said hesitantly, "Please, if I've misconstrued things, forgive me, but…you do…I mean…I've been hoping…" He hated to even use the word—_hope. _

With her free hand, she touched his cheek. "_I've been hoping," she said, "that someday, you would look at me and see __me, and not the memory of who I used to be."_

"Let me assure you," he said hoarsely. "If my eyes are open, all I _see is you."_

Her fingers tangled in his black hair, and she pulled his face to hers. She kissed him, and Snape was amazed to discover that his consciousness could be reduced to his mouth and everywhere her skin touched his. His hands slid along her arms, and he felt the goose bumps rise at his touch. She shivered in response and he thought dumbly, _I did that._

He touched her again, this time massaging her shoulders as he kissed her. She felt so good, that he felt sure he could go without food and water for weeks as long as he had her. She moaned then, and he stopped, startled. "Did I…hurt you?" He was appalled.  

"Oh, no" she exclaimed, "You couldn't have. It felt wonderful." She offered a shy smile.

He kissed her again, simply because he could—It was a rare pleasure to be able to touch and be touched. Her hands had slipped under his arms and behind his back, embracing him tightly.

Sometime later, when they headed back to the castle, Hermione looked up one lat time at the crescent moon. "You know, I've always been told that if you wished on a crescent moon, your wish would come true." They watched as the moon disappeared behind the clouds. "What do you think?"

"I used to thing that one might as well wish for wings, if one frittered away time in such a fashion. He saw her face fall then added, "Now, of course, I know _better." Indeed, as he tightened his grip on her hand, he thought that if he passed a mirror at this very moment, it might well show him with wings, and underneath the crescent moon._


End file.
